Young and Hungry 2009 (Auckland Season)

FIFTEEN years after the Young & Hungry Festival of New Works was set up in Wellington, it has finally come to Auckland – and it is set to be a valuable addition to an already lively youth theatre scene. Over sixty young theatre practitioners aged 15-25 are involved in acting and production roles in the two centres, mentored by some of the most respected names in NZ theatre. In Auckland, a partnership with the Auckland Theatre Company gives these fresh young artists access to some enviable resources, clearly shown in the production values for these three plays.

* * *

Oyster by Vivienne Plumb, directed by Julie Nolan, is a quick-fire sampling of the words and thoughts of Generation Y. The play is more a collection of poetic vignettes than a clear plotline, letting the audience to find their own touchstones within the many story fragments presented. Careful listening over time forms an intriguing web of narrative, aided by wonderful language and imagery.

Plumb shows she has a keen ear for the voices she represents. She’s certainly done her homework (one imagines her eavesdropping on buses and lurking in student cafeterias). Rather than linger on one story the action moves quickly from one set of a characters to another, their relationships slowly revealed over time. The writing is clever and tangential, riffing on stories from recent newspaper articles.

Issues tackled range from school bullying to cruelty to pigs to concerns about the environment. Take away the (dubious) taste in oonst-oonst music and the reliance on electronic communication and Gen Y seems not too different from the generations that have gone before. At the end of the day, the characters’ aim is one that resonates – the pursuit of individual happiness. Thus the ‘oyster’ of the title is one that is rough on the outside but sweet and contented on the inside. It’s a lovely evocation, a storybook image providing refuge from a world that sometimes seems impossibly harsh.

Julie Nolan coaxes a confident, energetic performance from her young cast. The stage at times feels too small for the nine actors who almost collide as they stride about the stage, but they are perfectly complemented by the upbeat soundtrack and zesty LED lighting. Cast and director have clearly spent time teasing out the pearls hidden in the text. And if their performances were somewhat unpolished on the opening night, we also believe that like the oysters of the title, there are treasures to be found in the end.

* * *

Sit On It by Georgina Titheridge, directed by Ben Crowder, is a revealing (some might say rather too revealing) at the seedy underside of women’s toilets. Set entirely in the loos of a trendy nightclub, this is no-holds-barred writing at its best. Why do women always go to the toilet in groups and stay there for hours? If you’re a man and watch this play it will be a mystery no longer. For women, this is a knickers-wetting revisit of all the most embarrassing episodes ever experienced in the ladies’. But only by the friend of a friend of a friend, of course.

All the characters (there’s a huge cast of thirteen) start off drunk and only get drunker. If I had one criticism of this play it would be that this is the main ‘character development’. There’s only so many laughs you can get by watching people (especially young women) act completely trashed and demean themselves. And Titheridge gets most of those laughs. But in a festival of plays for youth, none of her characters could be described as role models.

But then it’s not that kind of play. Sit On It is through and through a comedy, an amusing, sharp-witted expose of one of the most sacred rituals of female bonding. Intriguingly, the directors for both the Wellington and Auckland productions of this play were male. Ben Crowder (Auckland) does an excellent job of untangling the female psyche, no doubt with plenty of assistance from the predominantly female cast. The two male cast members do a stellar job, with vulnerable Dan and libidinous Mike being uncomfortably familiar characters (for some of us at least).

The attractive female cast not only fit their tiny little dresses perfectly, they also inhabit their characters, making each one seem distinct and not as stereotypical as we at first expect. We believe in their back stories, even though with such a huge cast and a running time of 50 minutes, there’s little time to expand. The comedic timing is impeccable and there are challenging moments of physical humour which are smoothly handled. The prize for most hilarious (and simultaneously most cringe-inducing) performance must go to Geraldine Jaynes for her character Monica’s questionable dress sense. Special mention must go to Agustina Cosacov for design of a daring pop art-inspired set which matched the mood of the play perfectly.

Titheridge’s writing is fast paced and precise. It drew frequent explosions of laughter from the audience on opening night, male and female alike, and the applause at the end was thundering. So it’s not a morality play. Who cares, apart from snobby theatre critics? This is a play that can and should travel.

* * *

Urban Hymns by Miria George, directed by Michelle Johansson, is different again, blending as it does the poetry of Hone Tuwhare with the voice of urban kiwi youth. Of the language on offer in this play, I’d say that Tuwhare’s offers the clearest way through. Most of the rest is hard to understand, at least for us old fogeys. The youth in this piece seem to speak in a mix of hip hop cliché and drug jargon (a character at one point gets chastises another for not using the right slang for dope smoking). It all gets a bit cryptic, sometimes.

The play follows a group of feral youths who spend their days drifting from crime to crime, smoking dope and stealing petrol, seemingly unsupervised by adults. The idea of using the poetry of Hone Tuwhare to underscore the issues of urban youth is a good one. In this production however, this potential is not explored deeply enough. One or two characters find enough inspiration in Tuwhare’s words and other music to renounce their lives as drifters; they never tell us enough to understand why.

In the end only one Tuwhare poem is used, one that clearly focuses the play on issues of brown pride. It seems a shame, given the premise, that we only hear snippets of one. Tuwhare left us a wealth of his words, many of which offer relevant commentary on NZ society. One plot device I had particular difficulty with was that none of these kids went to school, but they all seemed to be obsessed with finishing a homework essay on Tuwhare. Perhaps if we’d heard more of his language coming through it would have told us why.

Miria George is ambitious in tackling the big issues – youth poverty and crime, drug use, gangs. Her script is heartfelt and no doubt sends a strong message to the Maori and Pacific Island audience it is aimed at. Her group of odd misfits are appealing in their way. Das comes the closest to a rounded character, his conflict between supporting his father and a life of crime poignantly shown by Diako Amin. The supporting characters are much more one sided. These are big topics and big dramas for such a young cast to handle, and their work over the season can only mature.

At the end of the day, I was left wishing for more closure, more character development. Most of the characters seem to end the play in the same position where they started. Maybe if they’d listened more to the words of Hone they would have changed.

This is Nathan Wharerau, the person who played Joseph in the Auckland cast of Urban Hymns. Great review, however I have a few things to raise. First of all, we did go to school for multiple scenes (the Market Place, set at our school, The music room with Isaiah, Das and Tobias, the second to last scene where i, Tobias and Isaiah have a confrontation over the school being on fire and the final scene where Das and Lucius sit in the ruins of the music room.) it is understandable that there was no mention of school, however i (and Tiraroa Isherwood, who plays Blue) were in uniform (White shirt, tie and pants, skirt, etc) for the market scene along with many others. Also, the fact we used one poem of Tuwhare to convey the meaning of our situation is because our characters (or at least Joseph) knows this applies to him. That's why he's turning to Tuwhare as he sees this as his way out...not just that but he thinks the person tagging Tuwhare snippets all over the school is someone in his shoes, someone who understands his situation...but when he finds out it's Blue and that she's nowhere near the same place that Joseph is stuck in, he spirals further down.

In this play, only Das (Diako Amin) finds true inspiration. He finds his way out through music and no one has the same feeling as he does throughout the whole play. To say that "Maybe if they had listened to the words of Hone they may have changed" is completely missing the point. If you read the last line, from memory it says "brothers lets push him, kill him etc..." This play shows how low the characters will go according to their decisions.
Das finds an escape from his "cold and hard" world through music.
Joseph has to steal petrol to get money that will pay his bills when his boss won't give him any more hours. What happens to that? It burns down his very school (which you mentioned had never been visited)
Tobias is looking for acceptance from the powers that be at the market place (which again becomes the catalyst to the burning of the school (which you had said never was visited))
Blue wants to spread the message of the impending doom of the recession, etc (and inadvertedly angers Joseph when he finds out she's a rich girl herself and not a poor boy, desperate for cash to pay the bills and take care of the family)
Lucius wants a way out of the horrible life he's living as a drug dealer, stealing from his sister's boyfriend.
Ally doesn't know what she wants because she's such a stoner that she probably can't count to potato..?
Jerome wants sex, drugs, money and all that come with being a gangster.
Isaiah wants to make sure he's in control of the markets and all the money he rolls in from paying customers.
Now for 50 minutes, do you really think we can show more than one side of each character? For what time we have, we try. There is (for 50 minutes) enough material to at least show you the lives we (as the cast of Urban Hymns) have been through. There is enough time to show you what other sides our characters have...you just have to see it.
One last thing... Where do you get the drifters part from? I'm not dissing you in any way, i am just curious now...please message me back along with anyone else that disagrees with my opinion.
my email is nathanwharerau@hotmail.com.
tell me if you don't agree with what i've just said, i'm happy to defend it to the death.
Thank you for your time, looking forward to your email!

thanks very much for that insight in your play - I really appreciate it. Most people don't take the time to "critique the critic" and I think that it's great when it happens!! I write reviews from my honest opinion as an audience member, so what I write represents the view of only one (thinking) person, and I understand if you, and possibly others, don't agree with me. One of the functions of this and other review sites is healthy debate on plays, so what you have written is fantastic. A successful play is one that stirs plenty of discussion, a wise playwright once told me.

I think everyone will have a different view of this play depending on their age and life experience. I personally had some difficulty understanding the language as it was very much in 'youth code'. (I am in my 30s). I also have a disadvantage in that I haven't spent the last 2 months reading and talking about the play, and only have one performance to take it all in. To do credit to Miria's writing I think what she is tackling is hugely complex and, as you say, the many different character motivations are hard to bring out in only 50 minutes, and with so many characters.

When I said that "none of these kids went to school" I didn't realise that "The Marketplace" is actually set inside the school... I found it hard to tell from the set and dialogue since none of what the characters were doing seemed to be normal school things. I did notice the school uniforms, but a lot of the dialogue referred to people skipping class. And as for the "drifters" part, again that is my way of describing characters who seemed to be searching for meaning in their lives.

Having been in both positions (reviewer and a playwright being reviewed), both are hard - it's easy to pick up on the little negative things said and not look at the bigger picture. Which is that you are doing a great play, living in a character which you understand and that the themes and issues you believe in are being communicated to a wider audience. I take my hat off to you, I really do. And if, like me, they don't always 'get it' the first time, who cares - you'll go on to make more plays and make them listen!!

Posted: 19.07.09 @ 16:59:06

Add Comment

This item is closed, it's not possible to add new comments to it or to vote on it

Sidebar

The Lumière Reader's Arts Pages publish features, interviews and essays; short fiction and poetry; arts festival coverage; and a squadron of review columns dedicated to the local books, music, theatre and visual arts scene. [About Us]